Progress on Waverly's football field continues ahead of 2022 season opener

The thought of not playing any games at home last season was never a consideration  for Waverly football coach Randall Boldin.

Waverly opened the season on the road at Camden and was set to host Sycamore the next week. A day after their season opener, the Waverly community was rocked by devastating flash floods. 

The floods decimated the community taking the lives of 20 people and destroying several businesses and homes. Waverly's football field, practice field and fieldhouse were also destroyed in the flood.

Two months before the 2022 season is set to kickoff, progress on Waverly's football facilities has been slow but has finally started to pick up according to Boldin.

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"There hasn't been a whole lot of movement until recently," Boldin said. "They just now started working on the fields so the field will be fixed but we're still waiting on the fieldhouse. It's just kind of a kind of a waiting game."

Boldin said that work is being done on the field and surrounding area now and that next week they expect the new sod to be laid down on both fields. 

The TSSAA Dead Period ends on July 10 and Boldin said his hope is that they'll finally be able to practice on their field and have the field used for the game ready for the Tigers'  home game against Camden in Week 1. 

Waverly spent the 2021 season using nearby baseball and soccer fields for their practices and continued that through the spring. Boldin is a PE teacher at Waverly and the team is using his classroom and the school's locker rooms until work on the field house is completed. 

Waverly went 9-2 last season making it to the second round of the Class 3A playoffs. Aside from their already scheduled road games, the Tigers played most of their scheduled home games at Dickson County. 

They also played their homecoming game against White House at Nissan Stadium. 

The Tigers open the season with four straight home games against Camden, Columbia Academy, Sycamore and McNairy Central before three straight road games against White House, Stewart County and White House-Heritage. 

Waverly closes out the regular season with home games against Cheatham County and Fairview. 

"Hopefully the support from from our community and stuff will continue and our kids will feed off of it," Boldin said. "I think was really good for our kids to see us go on the road every game last year and see the good crowds that traveled with us. Everybody was eager and keeping up with this team and wanting to know how we were doing.

"We had a heck of a year and I think our kids really, really fed off that so we're looking forward to seeing that continued."

Reach Joe Spears at jspears2@gannett.com or 731-343-4923. Follow him on Instagram and Twitter @joe_spears7.